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Re:The world needs nuclear power and we shouldn’t be afraid ... by pfdietz on Friday October 23, 2020 @07:28PM (#24875490)
> Clean steel & cement.

Even today, 6% of all natural gas consumed in the world goes to making hydrogen (about 700 cubic kilometers of H2 per year at STP). The major use is in making ammonia.

Re:The world needs nuclear power and we shouldn’t be afraid ... by freeflight on Friday October 23, 2020 @09:09PM (#24876057)
Nobody is saying this is being done now, but Germany for example is heavily banking on a hydrogen based energy economy for the future [0], just as the EU comission does.

Which makes a lot of sense: It's a way to utilize the overproduction from renewables and existing gas infrastructure can be retooled for hydrogen without too much investment [1].

There are even considerations for a European hydrogen backbone by gas infrastructure companies from nine EU member states [2]

[0] https://www.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/zv/de/ueber-fraunhofer...

[1] https://www.rechargenews.com/transition/german-pipeline-oper...

[2] https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/gas-grid-operat...

Re:The world needs nuclear power and we shouldn’t be afraid ... by epistasis on Friday October 23, 2020 @10:59PM (#24876603)
Your post and links got me thinking: in many ways hydrogen is happening a lot more now than nuclear. China is building tons is alkaline electrolyzers. Europe is looking to PEM. There are new MW-scale electrolyzers used for silicon production. There's an active industry that is scaling and innovating and growing. Nuclear is in decline, with all the giants failing. The few startups are working on engineering projects where iteration is measured in decade time scales rather than months.

The hydrogen industry exciting right now, and honestly I can't imagine saying that even a year ago. Europe's investing tens of billions of dollars in it, which will result in massive changes and improvements for the technology. A similar investment in nuclear would not move the needle at all.

Re:The world needs nuclear power and we shouldn’t be afraid ... by ncmncm on Saturday October 24, 2020 @12:28AM (#24876944)
Local ammonia production is the best use for power from wind turbines that are distant from grid access. It is directly usable as both fertilizer and fuel, on the spot, for farms, and marketable to neighbors without turbines. Demand exactly matches supply.